Celebrities Don’t Date Bookworms (Texting the Boyband #1)

Chapter 7

seven

Group name: I promise this isn’t a group chat, Dad

Members: Ni-Ni, Bay, Sharky, Tis Moi Luca, Not Zesty, Eggo

12:58 a.m.

Bay

Anybody else awake?

Eggo

I am

Bay

I was aiming for someone else in my house

But I guess this works too ;)

Eggo

I see how it is

I’m not as good as the others because I don’t live with you

Fine then

I panicked slightly after sending the message. What if he couldn’t tell that I was joking? That could be hard to understand. Then he would think that I was serious and didn’t want to talk when I actually really did want to, and it would all be wrong. Why couldn’t I unsend messages in group chats? That needed to become a feature on here to save me from mortifying moments like this one.

Bay

Well the solution to this is obvious

I exhaled as I read his message. That didn’t sound like he hated me for what I said, so that was good. That was something.

Eggo

I move in with you?

Bay

Exactly

Eggo

Wow we’re just one mind

Bay

Maybe we should move to texting instead of group chat

I feel bad for the guys getting all the notification s

I tried not to read into the idea that he wanted to text me one-on-one too much. Part of me was so excited about it—even though we had literally talked on the phone last night, this felt more intimate for some reason. Maybe it was because it wasn’t an accident. Maybe it was because he was suggesting it. Maybe I was just crazy. But it felt special.

The first text came through from him a second later.

Bay

Hey :)

It’s Bay

But I assume you know that

Since we were talking in the other chat

But maybe not

I don’t know if you have my contact saved

You probably do because you texted me the other day

Crap sorry for all the messages

I held a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound of my laugh as I read the influx of messages. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.

Eggo

I do in fact have you saved, but I appreciate the confirmation

I don’t want to accidentally start texting with a serial killer or something

Bay

Well technically you don’t know who I am

So I could be a serial killer

I mean I’m not

But as far as you know I could be

I need to stop talking

Eggo

Don’t worry I trust you

But maybe that’s what you were hoping for

So I’ll get close to you, and you’ll get to kill me

Bay

But maybe we’ll get too close

And then I won’t have the heart to kill you

Eggo

How romantic

I regretted sending the text as soon as I hit the button, but once again, I knew that I couldn’t take it back, no matter how much I wanted to. He probably hadn’t meant us getting close in a romantic way. Why would he? He didn’t even know me. How could he possibly fall for someone he had never seen? And the same went for me too, anyway. Not that I was concerned about who he might actually be—I was more concerned that he wouldn’t be interested in me once he figured out who I was. If he saw me in person, would he actually like me?

Bay

Right?

And they say chivalry is dead

His answer didn’t make me feel much better. I couldn’t tell whether he liked my message, and was building off of it, or if he was just trying to redirect into something else because he was uncomfortable. Either way, I wasn’t going to risk another slip up like that. I was finally making new friends, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by coming on to them and making them uncomfortable.

Bay

Mind if we switch to voice notes?

I’m tired of typing

Eggo

Won’t you wake up the other guys?

Bay

Nah the walls are thick

Eggo

You don’t share a room with any of them?

Bay

Nope

Why would we?

That was strange. I couldn’t think of any houses nearby that would be big enough to have more than five bedrooms. While the houses in my neighborhood weren’t small, most of them had four bedrooms at a maximum. Granted, it was possible that he just meant that he didn’t share a room with anyone, but the other four could be split into pairs. But the wording of his text made it sound like none of them shared rooms. And the only place with houses big enough for that was… Beachwood.

The area neighbored mine, but definitely wasn’t comparable; it was filled with mansions, so big that my mom and I often wondered who could possibly need that much space. Properties with indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, guest houses… everything that I saw in movies, but didn’t think anyone had in real life. Bay couldn’t live there, could he? There was no way his family was paying for him to live there without them, right? But then again, his living arrangement wasn’t typical at all, so was this that much of a stretch? Maybe there was some reason they could afford it. All five of their families were probably pitching in.

Eggo

How big is your house??

Bay

Oh

Um

Big

I guess his awkwardness in answering told me everything that I needed to know. A second later, he sent a voice note. My thumb hovered over the play button for a second before I pressed down.

“Hey,” the voice note said. My heart melted a little at the sound of his voice. Even though we had a lot of international students at my school, including a lot of boys with British accents, there was something about his accent in particular that really spoke to me. Amusement was in his voice as he added, “Sorry, I didn’t think about what I was going to say.”

I laughed a little before I recorded a message back. “Don’t worry about it. But if you don’t know what else to say… why don’t you tell me another secret?”

I’d enjoyed sharing our secrets the other day. Even if they weren’t deep secrets, I liked learning about him. Knowing things that nobody else knew. And I guess he did too because he got back to me almost right away.

“This is a stupid secret, but Fi—um, I guess you would know him as Sharky. I accidentally bought the same shoes as Sharky, and we’re the same size, so it’s easy to get them mixed up, so we keep them in different spots. But a few days ago I stepped in this awful puddle, and got my shoes all wet, but I knew I had to wear them for a thing that night, so I swapped mine and his, then never told him. To this day, he has no idea why his pristine shoes were suddenly wet and muddy.”

Well, that secret was a step up from “I don’t like long noodles.”

“Please tell me you switched them back after,” I sent back.

“Okay, so that was the plan…” he laughed. “But then he blamed Luca for it because he likes pranking us a lot, and he got revenge on him with another prank, so then I felt like I couldn’t own up to it. So if the guys ever mention a prank war in the group chat, you’ll know it was because of me.”

“I mean, on one hand, that’s awful, but on the other hand, it’s kind of hilarious. Especially if Luca was already pranking you guys.”

I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have five teenage boys under one roof. I was sure it was constant chaos.

“I just consider it as the kick in the pants Sharky needed to finally get back at Luca. It was about time.”

I couldn’t stop laughing at the nicknames we had to use to describe the other boys. “Luca” was at least a normal one, but the idea of a sixteen-year-old boy named Sharky was hilarious. Although, talking about them like this made me think of a lot more questions I had about them. I wondered whether he would be more open to revealing some of their secrets today.

“You know, it would help me to imagine this if I knew what the guys sounded like,” I said in my next voice note. “Any chance you could send a… I don’t know, video of them talking? Without their faces visible somehow?”

There was a long pause before Bay responded.

“I can’t find any good audios that show their voices. But I can tell you that we all have different accents.”

Interesting. While we did have a fair number of international students at Summerfield, the fact that all five of them were from different places seemed like a strange coincidence.

“Okay, I have a new theory,” I responded. “I think you’re all exchange students. Or at least the other boys are. I’m not sure how you fit into this theory since you’re from Canada, but I’m guessing that the rest of them moved in together as part of the exchange program. And that explains why you’re all starting at the same time.”

I wasn’t sure what I expected him to respond with, but nothing prepared me for him uttering the words, “You’re actually right, in a way.” Of course, that was then followed up with some stipulations. “I mean, we are technically exchange students. Kind of. We’ve all lived in Canada for a while, but Luca’s the only one actually from here-here. And the reason we’re here isn’t for an exchange program, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t. It’s hard to explain. But yes, that is related to the reason we all live together.”

At least I was getting closer to the truth here. Every piece of information that he shared brought me just a little bit closer to understanding who these boys were. Before I could respond, another voice message came through from him.

“ I should probably go to bed soon,” he said. “I mean, I don’t want to because I want to keep talking to you, but I’m also getting tired. But before I do… you have to tell me a secret too.”

I probably should have anticipated that since it only made sense for me to reciprocate, but somehow, I hadn’t even considered it when I asked him for a secret. And now here I was, once again, stuck trying to think of something on the fly. Just like when we were on the phone, I knew the secret would have to be something stupid, and inconsequential, because I told Sloane all my big ones. Then I thought of the perfect one that I knew I had never told her, because she was the only one it affected.

“A few years ago, my best friend begged me to read her favorite book series. So I got all of them from the library and told her I’d read them over the weekend. But I couldn’t even make it through the first book because I hated it so much. So I just lied and told her that I loved them. And every time she talked about the books, I would just smile and nod. If I couldn’t get away with that, I would just change the subject. She still doesn’t know, and I feel like by this point, I have to take it to the grave.”

The problem with sending voice messages instead of being on a call was that when I sent a long one like that, I then had to wait in awkward silence while he listened, reacted, and then formulated his response. To pass the time—which only could have been a couple minutes, but might as well have been hours—I tried to imagine him reacting. I tried to remember what his laugh was like from the phone call yesterday. It was a deep laugh, I thought, one that sounded unusual for someone with a not-so-deep voice. And it was loud. Not a small giggle or anything, but a true deep, from the chest laugh that made me feel like he actually listened and cared. Of course, that might not have been how he was reacting to the story at all. I just liked to imagine that it was. I was so caught up in imagining that the ding that accompanied a new voice note arriving almost scared me.

“I think you’re right, you definitely have to take that to the grave. But I appreciate you trusting me enough to share it.” Warmth spread through me at the words, and I bit my lip. It wouldn’t have been a stretch for either one of us to think that I was just telling that story because I trusted he would never know who it was about; he didn’t know me, he didn’t know Sloane and he definitely wouldn’t be talking to her enough to casually tell her what I’d done. But I liked that he’d accepted it exactly how I meant it; that I trusted him enough to tell him something that I’d never told anyone else. Even if it wasn’t my most deep and dark secret (not that I had many of those), it was still special that I had chosen to share it. Just as what he had told me was special too. “Goodnight, love. Sweet dreams.”

I barely managed to send back a “Sweet dreams” to him too before I fell face first onto my pillow, and screamed into it.

Goodnight, love.

The memory of him saying that would be on my mind for a long time—I just knew it.